It looks like within the climate that's being experienced now, it's very likely there will be increases in CAFE,” Rick Wagoner, General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive, said Tuesday in Wilmington, Del. “I think our concern is, let's make sure that we also fix the real problems while we're doing that.”

NASA Administrator, Michael Griffin, is backing away from comments he made last week in a National Public Radio interview. At the time Griffin stated that, ” …a trend of global warming exists, I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”

The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases.

Scientists said they will face major gaps in data that can be collected only from satellites about ice caps and sheets, surface levels of seas and lakes, sizes of glaciers, surface radiation, water vapor, snow cover and atmospheric carbon dioxide.

But in a blow to efforts to tackle global warming, the world's second biggest producer of greenhouse gases refused to accept binding targets for emissions, saying wealthy developed nations must take the bulk of the responsibility for the problem.

Public opinion polls show a significant increase in the number of Americans who support strong climate action.

Deeper digging shows this support is superficial, too thin to drive the rapid sociopolitical change now required. For the first time, however, a small, but measurable number of Americans – probably no more than 3% – identify climate change as the greatest threat.

The Bush administration is writing a new plan to maintain governmental control in the wake of an attack or overwhelming natural disaster, moving such doomsday planning for the first time from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to officials inside the White House.

The policy makes no reference to Congressional checks and balances on the president's power to impose martial law or other extraordinary measures. Nor does it acknowledge the National Emergencies Act, a law that gives Congress the right to override the president's determination. Instead. the Bush team is pushing controversial theory that the Constitution gives the president an unwritten power to disobey laws at his own discretion.

In the same week that NASA scientists are reporting that we are at a dangerous and critical global warming tipping point, their top administrator will take to the airwaves tomorrow morning with a very different, if not diametrically opposite message.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.